Solar eclipse

[Robert Vermaat]

What was the Roman opinion/feeling about a solar eclipse? I can't seem to find much right now.

[Jona Lendering]

People were scared; the emperor Claudius released a message to explain what the people would experience, and that there was no reason to be afraid.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hmm.. Good...

People were scared; the emperor Claudius released a message to explain what the people would experience, and that there was no reason to be afraid.

Can you send me a link or maybe the text?

The next one (partial) in our parts is Friday, August 1, the maximum at 11.26, when we are at the Late Roman event.....

[Jona Lendering]

Can you send me a link or maybe the text?

Cassius Dio 60.26

[Magnus]

Is this the passage Jona?

26 Since there was to be an eclipse of the sun on his birthday, he feared that there might be some disturbance in consequence, inasmuch as some other portents had already occurred; he therefore issued a proclamation in which he stated not only the fact that there was to be an eclipse, and when, and for how long, but also the reasons for which this was bound to happen. 2 These reasons I will now give. The moon, which revolves in its orbit (or so it is believed), either directly below it or p435perhaps with Mercury and Venus intervening, has a longitudinal motion, just as the sun has, and a vertical motion, as the other perhaps likewise has, but it has also a latitudinal motion such as the sun never shows under any conditions. 3 When, therefore, the moon gets in a direct line with the sun over our heads and passes under its blazing orb, it obscures the rays from that body that extend toward the earth. To some of the earth's inhabitants this obscuration lasts for a longer and to others for a shorter time, whereas to still others it does not occur for even the briefest moment. 4 For since the sun always has a light of its own, it is never deprived of it, and consequently to all those between whom and the sun the moon does not pass, so as to throw a shadow over it, it always appears entire. This, then, is what happens to the sun, and it was made public by Claudius at that time. 5 But now that I have once touched upon this subject, it will not be out of place to give the explanation of a lunar eclipse also. Whenever, then, the moon gets directly opposite the sun (for it is eclipsed only at full moon, just as the sun is eclipsed at the time of new moon) and runs into the cone-shaped shadow of the earth, a thing that happens whenever it passes through the mean point in its latitudinal motion, it is then deprived of the sun's light and appears by itself as it really is. Such is the explanation of these phenomena.

After reading that...did the romans think the world was flat? It seems with their knowledge of such astronomical matters that they wouldn't.

[Jona Lendering]

did the romans think the world was flat? It seems with their knowledge of such astronomical matters that they wouldn't.

Herodotus was the last one to believe that the world was flat. Aristotle already knew better, observing that the shadow of the earth on the moon is round. The common opinion that in the Middle Ages, people believed that the world was flat, is based on a misreading of Isidore of Seville. (See F.B. Russell, Inventing the Flat Earth, 1991).

[Eleatic Guest]

That medieval people did not cease to believe in a spherical earth, should be standard knowledge by now. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinius, the most revered philosophical respectively theologian medieval authorities, said so explicitly in their works. The German Reichsapfel, insignium of the emperor, also has the shape of the earth with a cross on top.

In Monreale Cathedral, Sicily, I have made some pics from the wall mosaics, with God sitting on a spherical object, creating spherical celestial bodies. This is notable as the mosaics stem from around 1200, potentially very early proof, BEFORE the rediscovery of Aristotle.

[Jona Lendering]

Aristotle and Thomas Aquinius, the most revered philosophical respectively theologian medieval authorities, said so explicitly in their works.

Even better: Dante, who was read by a wide audience and translated, supposes that the earth was a globe, as Dante and Virgil, having descended into Hell, leave it by climbing to the other side of the planet.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

So why was Galeleo persecuted? Or was he?

[Tarbicus]

He held the Copernican opinion the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the Sun around the Earth. Copernicus was so afraid of the repercussions he didn't publish until on his death bed. I think the Church didn't really have a problem with this.

But, then Galileo built his telescope and made many observations about the planets and their having moons, which made the Inquisition see red as it seemed to contradict scripture.

Or so I believe.

[Jona Lendering]

Or so I believe.

The papal astronomer Clavius (of the Gregiorian Calendar reform) agreed with Copernicus, and it would not have mattered very much. BUT: Galilei also attacked the aristotelian world view, which is necessary for the Catholic way to express what happens during the Eucharist (transsubstantiation). That made a clash almost inevitable. Plus: Galilei was pro-France Florence, whereas the rest of Italy was pro-Spanish.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Right, I forgot about the old revolving bit! Thanks.

Didn't an eclipse occure during one of Caesars battles during the African campaign, or am I thinking of an earlier period, and a different general!
:?

[Robert Vermaat]

Can you send me a link or maybe the text?

Cassius Dio 60.26

Thanks Jona!

[D B Campbell]

... or am I thinking of an earlier period, and a different general! :?

There was an eclipse in 430 BC, which Pericles had to explain to the terrified troops.

[Theodosius the Great]

From what's been said here, it sounds like the troops react the same way to any kind of eclipse, be it solar or lunar.

During the Third Macedonian War on June 21 (our calendar) a lunar eclipse occurred. A tribune, one Caius Suplicius Gallus was somewhat knowledgeable about eclipses which allowed him to explain the phenomenon to his men so that the Romans were less terrified than the Macedonians. All the same, he duly sacrificed 11 heifers. At dawn he ordered the sacrifice of oxen to Heracles. After about 21 oxen were slaughtered the Romans finally produced a favorable omen. :roll:

~Theo